


Growing Old With Mercy (When We Are Old and Gray)

by Neon_Opal



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Books, Brooms, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dark Arts, Established Relationship, F/M, Firelight, Fluff and Angst, Growing Old Together, I guess a little, Late at Night, Memories, Poetry, Potions, Romance, Some Fluff, Teaching, William Butler Yeats - Freeform, Wistful, wars and peace.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:58:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neon_Opal/pseuds/Neon_Opal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>late one night and agin Severus Snape sits with his long time love Mercy Blessing dozzing on his shoulder and musses on their long life together and how it has and hasen't changed and recites her a poem.<br/>Follow up to "A Mercy For Snape" which is earlier in their relationship but each can stand alone I think.<br/>I do not own characters or world created by J.K. Rrowling</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Old With Mercy (When We Are Old and Gray)

~*~

 

Severus Snape sat by the fire with his long time love Mercy Blessing. She had never consented to marriage, retained her dislike of it all these year though people often referred to them as husband and wife and they did not disagree to being referred to as such. Both of their long hair had gone silver white but he wore his a bit longer but would never grow a beard and they both still always wore black or the occasional green. He wore Dumbledore type glasses now as well. Mercy still favored black jeans with the occasional flowy ankle length skirt happening more often but said the time for leather miniskirts and trousers was gone many years ago. They had made their home at Hogwarts neither had wanted to leave it even though semi-retired. He still gave a few lectures each semester to last year potions students and special tutoring to the most serious ones and the lure of the dark arts had never left him he was thought of a the wizarding worlds authority on that still fielding questions along with Mercy who was also a master at that subject. He also still insisted on some lectures to first years, young ones used to be kept far too ignorant on that matter.

 

He knew they both would continue to teach and impart knowledge in whatever way they could as long as they could. They had written a few books together on potion ingredients and defense against the dark arts for young students. Mercy had never learned the subtle art of brewing the perfect potion as much as he had tried to teach her she was far too impatient. But as then she could identify anything needed to make them by sent or touch alone and liquids by color. He still hadn’t figured out how she did that and she said it could not be explained, it was more intuitive and her knowledge had grown with the years she even could identify things he could not. Sometimes that scared him just a tiny bit.  
Miss Blessing had helped forge relationships between North American and Europe’s Wizzarding communities that had been virtually unknown when they met and she had helped shelter and heal him at the end of the war when someone brough him to her in Philadelphia. And she continued to help rescue those in trouble and need in both the the wizarding and muggle world espically women through her Witches of the Round table. He had learned it was often an underground railroad of sorts.

 

Severus still though Mercy was beautiful. He found her intelligence even more brilliant. She had mellowed that bully side he used to have and he was even known to laugh and smile. Old students of his were always unsettled with that change. It seemed to make them uncomfortable for some reason. He treated current students with less distain, but still had no tolerance for those who had ability but did not apply themselves. Mercy was still her old feisty self she would not take bullshit from anyone including Neville Longbottom who was the current Headmaster. They’d had to give up the motorcycle but still raced broom sometimes at midnight. They’d never had children of their own but stayed content teaching the children, grandchildren and in some cases even great grandchildren of his students. It all went along unwinding as it would. There had been another war, there would probably always be wars he realised but things were at peace for now. Some nights he still lay awake checking off his litany of misdeeds in his head, he’d never been able to discontinue that, wishing for atonement that could never come. Lilly had never left his mind and he had found it unsettling when Harry’s granddaughter had entered Hogwarts and so much resembled her.

 

Somewhere in there they of all people had taken to reading poetry to each other, having much now committed to memory after so many years. They had kept some secrets of the past hidden from each other but he knew without a doubt her childhood had been as unhappy as his. It was why they were both fighters. He had found out she had also had to kill a man she admired (much as he had been forced to with Dumbledore) but no details. It broke his heart; he knew how she felt. He was pretty sure it had to do with the muggle mafia she had connections to and managed to sever ties with by disappearing here, and never returning to the US after age 50. Another one of those odd bonds they had. So many unlikely parallels. She had never brailed him for what his part was with the Death Eaters. She accepted what he did tell her and never questioned what he chose not to. Their middle aged meeting had given them a companionship they would have not had had they met at 23.

 

Severus was not sure if Mercy was asleep with her head there on his shoulder but he began to recite softly in his distinct voice that she always loved a poem by William Butler Yeats

 

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep,  
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,  
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look  
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 

 

How many loved your moments of glad grace,  
And loved your beauty with love false or true,  
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,  
And loved the sorrows of your changing face; 

 

And bending down beside the glowing bars,  
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled  
And paced upon the mountains overhead  
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.” 

 

As he finished he kissed her hair. She would always remain his Mercy till the end. They had no need to say “till death do us part”.

 

The End

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> I an trying to decide if I should keep working on some of the how they met/fill in the blanks part of the stroy I've mde some notes for but these 2 character stories I often writed don't seem as popular here so if you'd have an intrest to read them let me know/ Thanks.


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